But not the game v Egypt.
A game so ar5e-numbingly dull after five minutes exposure you'd lose the power of walking. Clever way of keeping people from venturing out during the lockdown.
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
In a bid to keep kids from defecting from GAA to soccer, TG4 have opted to show all of Ireland's Italia '90 matches/draws and one loss
I'll be watching them all, reliving my youth
Folding my way into the big money!!!
Ahead of the broadcast of the game against England tonight, the Independent have reprinted Kevin Moran's diary from the day before the game: https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-39172413.html
Did anyone watch the England match on Friday?
Sheedy defo should have had a penalty in first half. Barnes ploughed him out of it.
For most of the match, Ireland were the better team but England always looked like they could create a goal out of nothing.
And even though the weather was pretty bad, Ireland didn’t resort to long ball time and again and actually played it out of the back a lot.
England’s goal was better than I remember. A sublime ball by Waddle and Lineker shaped his body brilliantly to evade Bonner, having gotten between McCarthy and Morris.
Chris Morris is a very underrated servant for Ireland
I watched it too, my first time seeing it in full as I only jumped on the bandwagon in the aftermath the Romania match!
Most striking was how bad England were, granted they were happy enough protecting their 1-0 lead. Even their flair players were either poor or anonymous, Barnes, Gazza and even Waddle, bar that one pass. They were extremely direct too, maybe not as unapologetically as us but close enough, very aimless and couldn't string three consecutive passes together. A bit rich for the likes of Lineker to talk about our great strength being difficult to play against, it looked like their biggest strength too.
Hard to imagine they went on to have such a decent tournament but then none of their results on their own were worthy of many kudos, bar maybe their eventual 'heroic' exit.
The 'foul' by Barnes was actually on Houghton but yes, a stonewall penalty. Funny though that neither George Hamilton nor the English match commentators even mentioned a possibility of a penalty, and our own players protests were pretty tame, a sign of the times I suppose. (It's here at around 18:40 for anybody interested).
We had a close escape straight away after equalising, Butcher heading just wide. That'd have been a serious kick in the liathróidí.
I can't think of too much else, Robson probably best for them, just in a workhorse sense, McMahon had a nightmare after being introduced for Beardsley to 'see out the result'. McGrath broke Barnes up at every opportunity, rarely legally. For a long ball side we weren't very accurate with our hoofs to Cascarino, felt sorry for him.
Was nice to hear the English rendition of 'wun nil.. wun nil... wun nil... wun nil', safe in the knowledge it wouldn't stay that way. A huge amount of empty seats, large sections even. Also funny on the same video I linked above, from round 1:20:40, the English commentary team of Lawrie McMenemy & Peter Brackley started talking patronisingly about how the Irish fans were expecting too much, that we had got too carried away with the success of Euro 88... then bang... SHEEDY... 1-1.
I just watched the Egypt match there as well, seeing as it's not being shown over the next few weeks. I was expecting more gamesmanship and negative tactics by Egyptians to be honest, in the mold of Israel and Dudu Aouate some years later. They were happy to play their football, just very limited, not too unlike ourselves in the same game! They did engage in a bit of time wasting in the last 10/15 minutes, which resulted in their goalkeeper being booked, but nothing overly controversial.
Interesting to hear the American commentators say that they were the most prepared side heading into the World Cup, having spent the previous four months together at a number of training camps. They had some good results pre-tournament also, winning in Scotland and Prague.
We never got going in the match, a lot of huff and puff, a corner here and a free kick there, no flow at all. Staunton looked very accomplished for a 21 year old playing on such a big stage. McGrath must have have his quietest game in an Irish shirt, forgot he was even playing until he won a corner in the second half. Aldridge had two exceptionally poor outings, even allowing for the lack of service. Our best quality really was our ability to win the ball back quickly, just a shame we weren't a bit more inventive/dynamic once we did!
Anyway, back to Palermo on Friday evening for the Dutch. All to play for.
The ref was decent. That was some dive by Waddle, the complete performance, writhing in agony for a minute. And this was in the pre Johnny Foreigner era.
Looked a blatant dive alright. In the interest of balance, Kevin Sheedy went down in a similar vein against Egypt, albeit without the histrionics.
Balance? I'm not interested in a questionable attempt to introduce the theory of balance, especially when it's done in order to reduce the glory of the moral victory and competitive result gained against England.
On the day, it wouldn't have mattered to me in the least if Sheedy had first castrated McMahon with a deft flick of the boot in order to win that ball.
It's the first time I have watched that game since, it's strange watching it with the all the tension absent, a WC debut, against England, their ***** fans, desperately needing a result and waiting an eternity for that equaliser.
With a name like McMahon, I’m not sure it was a mistake him giving the ball away like that
Found a bunch under the Old Football Matches user on youtube:
Ireland vs France 1982 World Cup Qualifier 14.10.1981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=torYVIkV2vY
1984 UEFA Euro Qualifiers - Ireland v. Spain 17.11.1982
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQWEDvc8Lqw
1988 UEFA Euro Qualifiers - Belgium v. Ireland 10.09.1986
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcj3EW4QnVw
1990 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers - Ireland v. Northern Ireland 11.10.1989
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYqs8llLV24
1994 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers - Ireland v. Spain 13.10.1993
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kknBSZlL0aE
He also has the 1986 qualifier against Denmark, Hand's last game in charge but no need to see that again even 34 years later....
Some others:
1980 Friendly Ireland v Argentina 16.5.1980 (I don't think I've ever seen this one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy1tD9jcfxY
1988 Euro Qualifiers - Ireland v Bulgaria 14.10.1987
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVCHLzYSCY8
1988 Euro Qualifiers - Bulgaria v Ireland 1.4.1987 in 3 parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4U85CQxtrI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBqmOAs8CqY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7Y-EJIKzs
1990 European Qualifiers Ireland v England
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxrHZHEm8cE
1994 World Cup - Ireland v Italy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gtZnyCDljE
2002 World Cup Qualifiers Ireland v Portugal 2.6.2001 in 4 parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lENsj1Emkvs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFS1V_o09P8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBFqGQI_Q0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFdfy7mtZt8
2002 World Cup Qualifiers Ireland vs. Netherlands 1.9.2001 in 4 parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK-l-Akred4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK4AK8_dFMo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8WXaTD6hck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD907JFHCFQ
Last edited by Metrostars; 15/05/2020 at 12:36 AM.
"Jacques Santini...will be greeted in every dugout of the country by "one-nil, one-nil" - Clive Tyldsley, 89th minute of France-England June 13, 2004.
"Ooooohhhh Nooooooo" Bobby Robson 91st minute.
Fantastic stuff
On Irl v Romania, again this was my first time watching the whole game since that day. George was quite confident that we would go through, probably that was after we survived his danger here moment early on in the game. The team played with great confidence. Romania dropped back and allowed us to play the ball to the half way line, at least we were not hoofing the ball willy nilly. There wasn't a dud player on our team.
Outside of the first 12 was there much? An ageing O'Leary was on the bench, obviously oozed class being a top defender, John Sheridan and Ronnie Whelan were the stand outs. Who would Ronnie have replaced if fit and chosen? Townsend?
O'Leary when he came up to take the nr 5 pressure kick, at the time I thought he must be really good at this sort of thing.
Watched it there on TG4 - thought it was a better game than I remember it being. Romania were a bit unlucky, but really Hagi was almost their only threat. Might have been a different game if Lacatus hadn't been suspended. Hard to think that some of those players - like Balint, who was anonymous - had won the European Cup just four years previously.
You'd imagine Whelan probably would have replaced Townsend just going on squad numbers (6 v 13). But I thought Townsend was younger than he was (26), so not like he was an untried youngster in there, and when Whelan did come on against Holland, it was for Sheedy.
Outside those who played though (plus Sheridan and Whelan), the others in the squad were Peyton, Hughton, Slaven, Stapleton, Kelly, Byrne and McLoughlin. McLoughlin had replaced Waddock at late notice of course. A mix between excellent players at the end of their careers (Hughton, Stapleton) and ok club players who would maybe do a job, but were definitely back-up players. Only McLoughlin got gametime - maybe that was to justify his call up; Hughton made the bench the first two games.
Ireland v Holland was a very watchable game too, except for the last 10 minutes of course. Has Italia 90 got a slightly worse rep than it deserves? I must see if I can find the full Egypt game somewhere to balance things out!
Look no further - https://footballia.net/matches/ireland-egypt
The American commentary is surprisingly bearable. I watched it in between TG4's replaying of the England and Holland games, for completion sake.
Mcloughlin pressuring McMahon to make a mistake in the England game justified his inclusion for me.
I’m surprised how little people talk about Chris Morris when discussing great Irish players, who (I’ve only watched back England and Holland games so far) looks to have had a very solid tournament
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